June 22, 2007

Our local Mc Donalds was doing a fund raiser by offering photos of the kids on a pony. Our kids were highly enthusiastic about sitting on the horsey and the proceeds went to Ronald McDonald Charities -- so we were "in"!

After a light snack of Chicken Mc Nuggets and apple juice, we stood in line for our photo and this was the result.

Neither child cried but neither was super thrilled about wearing this silly attire while sitting atop an overheaded pony named "Snowy". In fact, I'm almost certain that my girls were as excited about being there as Snowy was (which isn't saying much!) But everyone was cute as can beso it was blog-worthy. And here ya go!

I got the idea for this week's FFFF from M3 over on the Salsa in China blog. She wrote about how her twin cuties (Rose and Marie) totally "heart" one another and that made me think about Sisterly Love in our house. Thanks, MMM!

My girls really do love one another even if they don't always show it. But here they are showing it!

All kids are messy but Gwen and Maddy are incredible mess makers. If the naturally occurring toddler mess isn't intense enough, they'll invent more of it -- just for fun!

For example, today, I gave my little monkey girls a slice of cheese. I figured they'd be enthuastic about this snack choice since they always open their toasted cheese sandwiches like Oreo cookies and nibble the cheese out. I thought I'd just save them the trouble.

The result: They squeezed it between their fingers like play dough!

Did they managed to swallow any of it?

Nope.

On any given day, you can probably find at least one mauled toast slice (that's been stripped of all its cheesy goodness) in some stage of petrification under a car seat.

Every few days, I use a whisk broom to sweep out all of the crumbs onto our driveway (or a random parking lot) and I'm starting to notice that flocks of birds are following my van like sharks follow fishing boats that toss chum behind them as they return to dock with their daily catch. I'm probably interfering with migration patterns.

We ate "mackie cheese" for lunch a few days ago and I actually had to carry their table into the kitchen and hose it off over the sink!

But nothing is more abusive than the way they eat chocolate. Just look at all that yummy stuff they wasted by smearing it all over their face! (Okay, I'm guilty too but I was only one year old and I'm sure I've never wasted even an ounce of chocolate in any form since then!)

Even washing up is messy in our house since there's soap to squirt and water to splash and shirts to soak and towels to toss on the floor. And that's WITH my supervision! We keep a baby gate across the bathroom door to prevent them from attempting to "clean up" on their own.

Of all of our baby related purchases, I think our strollers have given us the most bang for the buck. There's not a day that goes by that we don't use the stroller. Some days, it's hauled in and out of our trunk three or four times!

Since we use the stroller so much, it stands to reason that some of our most memorable photos include strollers. When I was preparing this week's FFFF, I dug through the archives and had at least a dozen photos to post but I limited myself to just these three (one of each of our strollers).

The top photo is a sleeping Gwen in our Graco Metrolite stroller. It was taken in China at the Six Banyon Tree Temple in Guangzhou. It was my birthday and it was our 6th day with our new daughter. My birthday hadn't been a cause for celebration for many years. First of all, it's 9/11. Next, I'm over 40. And as lousy luck would have it, I'd spent the prior two birthdays dealing with pregnancy losses (one of them was on my birthday). So, this birthday in China with Gwen and Andrew was simply beautiful.

Yes, we took a stroller to China. We also took a baby carrier and both items saw LOTS of use. It was wicked-hot and as much as Gwenny loved Mommy to hold her, she seemed to greatly appreciate being less hot and sweaty in her stroller when we were outside. The stroller was cheap so it was easy to buy it for the trip to China and replace it if it didn't survive the trip. But it survived and performed better than strollers 5 times the price. There wasn't a reason to replace it until we got Maddy.

In anticipation of Maddy's arrival. We test drove every tandem/double stroller on the market and ended up with the one that met almost all of our needs (lightweight, large basket underneath, parent drink holders, no 'third' wheel in the center, easy to push with one hand, etc). As luck would have it, it also ended up being the cheapest double stroller (other than umbrella strollers). In the middle picture, you see Maddy and Gwen on Maddy's adoption day in our Graco DuoRider stroller. This was her 2nd day with us and the first smile we captured on film. Nine months later, we're still using this stroller every day and it's going strong.

Finally, here's our new jog stroller - a BabyTrend Expedition. It's much easier to push on the streets and sidewalk and the kids love it. There's even a built in speaker for you to plug your mp3 player/iPod into for the kiddies. We got this one at Babies-R-Us (cheap) and our only regret is that the front wheel doesn't swivel.